Rafael Leão must pay Sporting Lisbon 16.5 million euros! What was his fault?

It’s decided. The question is whether it is definitive. Rafael Leão must pay Sporting Lisbon a huge fee, which climbs to 16 and a half million euros. This was recently decided by the Court of Appeal. What exactly is Leão guilty of and what alternative is left for him?

At the end of the 2018/19 season, Leão unilaterally terminated his contract with the Lisbon club, along with several of his then-teammates. The main reason for the contract termination was the violent attack on the club’s sports centre after the team failed to qualify for the Champions League.

The Portuguese winger then transferred to French side Lille for free, from where he left to AC Milan on the stroke of August 2019. The transfer fee at the time was €29.5 million.

Sporting Lisbon subsequently sued the player. Sporting representatives said that the player decided to terminate his contract at a time when he did not have valid grounds to terminate the contract that bound him to the club. A claim for financial compensation was also made, but FIFA rejected Sporting’s claims.

As a result, the Portuguese club took the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which subsequently ruled in their favour and ordered the player to pay a whopping €16.5 million in compensation!

It should be noted, initially his former employer demanded a sum of forty-five million euros, which, by the way, seems far-fetched, even though this amount was supposed to represent his sell-on clause. This is undoubtedly a hard blow for the 22-year-old Portuguese.

His only option at the moment is an appeal to the Supreme Court. As we write above, Leão joined AC in August 2019 after his successful season in the French top flight.

In a Lille jersey then, he scored eight goals in 26 games and assisted on two more. He has so far struck in 97 games for AC Milan across all competitions, with twenty-one accurate shots to his credit, on top of 14 assists.

He is currently enjoying a successful season with the Rossoneri, at least as far as domestic competition is concerned. The team from Italy’s second largest city is currently in third place, whereupon its players have collected 49 points in the Serie A so far.

Sources: Mirror, AC Milan, Transfermarkt